The Bat and Ball Brigade

Tackle it held a glamorous and exciting fashion show on Thursday (8th May) at Sturgess Jaguar Show room in Leicester. A beautiful hot summers evening put the hundreds of men and women who attended in fine spirits for the fun evening that was ahead. Chris Sturgess brought in a few special cars for the evening, the Union Jack Jaguar as seen in Austin Powers, a Formula 1 racing car and the James Bond Jaguar car. Keeping to the sporting theme of the fashion show guests were greeted by tennis ball girls and enjoyed sipping on champagne and exquisite canapés from Stones events. Adding a touch of city chic to the evening was Brass Monkeys, the best cocktail bar in the country, based in Nottinghams uber cool Lace Market. Matt Hampson and Steve Walsh came to show their support, Matt Hampson Said: “A brilliant and professional evening, so well executed, Francesca and Tallulah have far exceeded all expectations that I had considering that they are only students at the end of the day.”

The fashion show kicked off with Willie Thorne, the local legend and Strictly come dancing extraordinaire who compared the whole evening and the auction. Guests sat back and watched a short DVD clip of real men talking about their fight against testicular cancer and then Amelia from the singing trio Elysium opened the first half with ‘World in Union’ and incredibly powerful voice for such a small woman.

The audience were on the edge of their seats when Tigers star, Tom Varndell hit the catwalk in the underwear section, followed by team mates Tom Croft, Jordan Crane, Brett Deacon and Leicester County cricketers Paul Nixon and Garnette Kruger. If it wasn’t hot enough already, the boys worked the catwalk in underwear from designer Sunspel (who designed for Daniel Craig in James Bond). Harry Ellis, George Chuter, Johne Murphy and Andy Goode all from the Leicester Tigers played up to the audience all night, putting on a fantastic show. Formula 3 driver and RAC team member Steven Jelley also took to the stage, showing his support for men with Testicular cancer. The patron of tackle it, Dan Hipkiss said a few words to the audience along side Francesca and Tallulah, he said; “The girls asked me back in November to be patron of their campaign and I thought it was for a good cause that doesn’t get much recognition, I had no idea the scale of what they were putting on this evening I am an extremely proud of them both and proud to be patron of tackle it.”

As the Fashion show came to an end, the partying carried on until the early morning as many of the guests and models attended the after show party in Leicester city centre. The main goal of the evening was to raise awareness of testicular cancer, however we did raise in the region of £5000.00 by the end of the evening.

View the gallery for pictures of the evening.